The Magic Pudding - The Opera

dc.contributor.authorBowman, Calvin
dc.coverage.spatialMalthouse Theatre, Melbourne, Australia
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-13T22:24:41Z
dc.date.created4/10/2013en_AU
dc.date.issued2013-10-04
dc.date.updated2024-03-03T07:17:33Z
dc.description.abstract'The Magic Pudding - The Opera' is Victorian Opera's major commission for 2013. Norman Lindsay's classic Australian story is adapted into a libretto by Anna Goldsworthy with music by Calvin Bowman.
dc.format.extent60 minutes, 40 performers
dc.format.mediumOpera
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/72844
dc.publisherANU School of Music
dc.rightsResearch Background The task of breathing new life into that most ‘classical’ of musical genres, opera, stands as one of the most interesting, if not pressing, challenges of contemporary compositional practice; it is a particularly interesting one when the libretto is derived from a beloved work of Australian children’s literature and the target audience is both children and adults. How does one construct a lyric drama and compose in a style that is both inclusive and relevant to a contemporary Australian audience of all ages? Research Contribution This work has made successful and significant contribution to Australian opera; the work itself also explores contemporary approaches to musical characterisation, and notions of what an Australian ‘sound’ might be when writing in this archetypal historical European art form. Research Significance The Melbourne production was universally praised in the local and national press (including The Australian, The Herald Sun) and on-line, and it subsequently went on tour to Warragul, Wodonga, Mildura, Shepparton and Ballarat. One reviewer (Herald Sun) noted that ‘It's wonderful to see an opera clearly aimed at engaging children in a sometimes-inaccessible performance art, but the infectious joy of the show also saw adults who had attended without kids chortling along with the jokes’. Another (The Australian) declared that ‘Composer Calvin Bowman with librettist Anna Goldsworthy has crafted an intelligent, highly accessible piece for Victorian Opera that delivers the essence of Lindsay's boisterous story and characters’. As an act of practice-based research, simply put, it achieved exactly what it set out to do.
dc.titleThe Magic Pudding - The Opera
dc.typeCreative work
local.bibliographicCitation.placeofpublicationMalthouse Theatre, Melbourne and regional Victorian centres
local.contributor.affiliationBowman, Calvin, College of Arts and Social Sciences, ANU
local.contributor.authoruidBowman, Calvin, u5036330
local.description.embargo2037-12-31
local.description.notesImported from ARIES
local.identifier.absfor190407 - Music Performance
local.identifier.absfor190406 - Music Composition
local.identifier.absseo950101 - Music
local.identifier.ariespublicationU3488905xPUB3451
local.type.statusPublished Version

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